"Zebra" is the first single released from the John Butler Trio

John Butler Trio

The John Butler Trio are an eclectic roots and jam band from Australia led by guitarist and vocalist John Butler. They formed in Fremantle in 1998 with Jason McGann on drums and Gavin Shoesmith on bass guitar...

's album Sunrise Over Sea

Sunrise over Sea

Sunrise Over Sea is the third album of The John Butler Trio and the fifth featuring John Butler. It was released in March 2004.- Conception and production :...

. Featuring the Sunrise lineup of John Butler

John Butler (musician)

John Charles Wiltshire-Butler or John Charles Butler is an Australian musician, songwriter, record label owner and producer...

 on guitar/vocals, Shannon Birchall

Shannon Birchall

Shannon Birchall is an Australian born musician, probably best known as the bassist for jam band the John Butler Trio. Birchall is often labeled a virtuoso by different music experts. He is also known for composing and conducting the string sections of the John Butler Trio's...

 on double bass and Nicky Bomba

Nicky Bomba

Nicholas Caruana aka Nicky Bomba is an Australian musician and singer. He is the frontman of his band Bomba as well as the drummer and percussionist of John Butler Trio and has also performed with several other artists. He is also a solo artist.-Biography:Bomba's family migrated to Australia late...

 on drums/percussion, it blends the genres of roots

Traditional music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, and a bit of blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

.

Zebra is exceptionally known for its catchy refrain and lyrics which are entirely about opposites, for example "I can be alive, man, or be the walking dead" or "I can be black or I can be white".

Inspiration

According to John Butler, the song began as a riff that he had stuck in his head for several years, but had difficulty recalling when he had a guitar. The lyric pattern of "I could be da da, I could be da da" originated from Butler scat singing

Scat singing

In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...

 the riff to his baby daughter, while the opposites in each line of the lyrics led Nicky Bomba

Nicky Bomba

Nicholas Caruana aka Nicky Bomba is an Australian musician and singer. He is the frontman of his band Bomba as well as the drummer and percussionist of John Butler Trio and has also performed with several other artists. He is also a solo artist.-Biography:Bomba's family migrated to Australia late...

 to the idea of a zebra

Zebra

Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...

 asking itself if it was white with black stripes or black with white stripes, from which the song's title is derived.

Music video

The music video for Zebra features Butler and the band recording the song in a studio which seems like a small, worn out back shed. It is also interspersed with footage of Butler on his skateboard.

Track listing

All tracks written by John Butler

John Butler (musician)

John Charles Wiltshire-Butler or John Charles Butler is an Australian musician, songwriter, record label owner and producer...

.

1. "Zebra" - 3:56
2. "Media" (Live at the Wireless
   Live at the Wireless
   Live at the Wireless is a radio show, and now a long standing tradition, of Triple J, an Australian radio station. Live music is one of the central philosophies of the station....
   
    for Triple J
   Triple J
   triple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
   
   ) - 7:10
3. "Losing My Cool" (previously unreleased) - 8:10

Personnel

• John Butler - Amplified 11-string acoustic guitar, banjo, lead vocals
• Shannon Birchall - Double bass, electric bass, backing vocals
• Nicky Bomba - Drums, percussion, backing vocals
• Michael Barker
  Michael Barker
  Lieutenant-General Michael George Henry Barker CB, DSO was a British Army general.-Military career:Barker, born 1884 in Wells District, Somerset, served in the Militia during the Second Boer War before accepted a commission in The Lincolnshire Regiment in 1903...
  
  - Cookie Spoons, congas (Track 1)
• Michael Caruana - Hammond organ (Track 1)
• Dave Pensabene - Backing vocals (Track 1)